Disobedient British Fathers Act to Reclaim Children

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

Published: November 11, 2004

The first real flicker of fame for Fathers 4 Justice came in May, after two legislators hurled condoms bulging with purple flour at Prime Minister Tony Blair in the House of Commons, setting off major security jitters at Westminster.

Then, in July, came the raid on the gothic York Minster cathedral. Disgruntled fathers, cloaked in cardinal red robes and vicars' smocks, burst in, commandeered the pulpit and unfurled a banner on the roof that read, ''In The Name Of The Father.''

But it was Batman, feet carefully planted on a Buckingham Palace ledge until well after the start of the 6 o'clock news on Sept. 13, who catapulted the group's renown and international appeal.

''We'll have to go a long way to try to top that,'' said Batman, also known by his mortal name, Jason Hatch, the group's operations manager who came within seconds -- so the police told him -- of being shot that day. ''We really did humiliate the government.''

Using these stunts of civil disobedience, the divorced and separated fathers who belong to Fathers 4 Justice say they hope to accomplish one thing: ensuring they get a fair shake at equal custody of their children in court.

First, though, they needed to get noticed, and to do that they enlisted Superheroes, or at least their costumes, and the nonviolent, look-at-me tactics of environmental groups like Greenpeace.

''This campaign had to be provocative and challenging; we are there to change the debate,'' said Matthew O'Connor, 37, the founder and creative mastermind of Fathers 4 Justice, who runs a marketing and public relations company. ''We wanted to rub our type of campaign against the face of society.''

Britain, though, does not necessarily embrace that kind of campaign. While the country appreciates a good protest, it appreciates a civilized one even more, and the group's stunts have been met with a certain level of alarm, embarrassment and derision.

But their antics have also brought some success: the men have become a political force in Britain, their movement is booming -- and coming soon to the United States -- and their protests are being heard by politicians.

The government is already proposing changes to the law and has not been shy about criticizing its own court system. Several of Britain's senior family court justices and its head of the judiciary, Lord Charles Falconer, are on record as saying the family court process is needlessly adversarial and protracted.

One particularly egregious problem is enforcing court orders. Orders that require one parent to allow contact with another parent are easily flouted in Britain, mostly because penalties -- fines, prison or changes in custody -- are seldom imposed. Most judges view such sanctions as overly harsh.

''The whole thing goes terribly wrong when one parent decides to ignore an order,'' said Louisa Cross, a spokeswoman for the Solicitors' Family Law Association, underscoring one of the fathers' major frustrations.

While only 10 percent of divorcing or separating couples actually end up in court in England and Wales, the government acknowledges that the system fosters hostility rather than cooperation between parents. Government officials are now considering ways to encourage mediation at an earlier stage, without mandating it.

''The system needs to be faster and fairer,'' said Andrew Bell, the spokesman for the Department of Constitutional Affairs, which oversees the court system.

In the vast majority of cases, children in Britain live with their mothers and visit their fathers. Some fathers lose contact with their children by choice. Others are ordered to stay away because of allegations of domestic violence or child abuse. But there are many fathers -- and the number is growing -- who want to see more of their children and are unsatisfied with their custody arrangements.

They say judges have been slow to recognize the changing roles of fatherhood, including the fact that 50 percent of the British work force is made up of women. Fathers argue that the system is biased against them, and that the government's proposal will do little to change that.

What is really needed, they emphasize, is for the court to presume a 50-50 custody arrangement from the start, and then work from there. It is the kind of policy that exists in parts of Scandinavia and several American states. The fathers also call for mandatory mediation, penalties that are enforced and open, not secret, court proceedings.

So far, the government in its ''green paper'' set of proposals, is not inclined to support a 50-50 solution, open court proceedings to the public or mandate mediation, arguing that those steps are unnecessary and impractical.

''The green paper is a cynical exercise in recycling existing legislation and presenting it as reforms,'' Mr. O'Connor said from his home and the group's headquarters here in Suffolk.

Considering that pronouncement, the ''McDads,'' so-called because of their tendency to congregate at McDonald's with their children, have no plans to back off. In fact, the group is expanding and going international.

Membership in the organization, which was founded less than two years ago, has leapt from 200 to 12,000. It now has 33 chapters across Britain and branches in Australia, the Netherlands and Canada.

Next year, it expects to open one in the United States, although the group is nervous about the reaction to the Superheroes and their stunts in security-conscious, post-9/11 America.

There are great hopes for the movement in the United States, where fathers have filed identical class-action suits in 41 states this year pushing for equal custody. Some 27 states in the United States have already changed their laws to make it easier for fathers to win shared custody of their children, and Florida in particular is considered a model.

European fathers are also feeling emboldened. In Italy, 100 men dressed up as Batman and held a demonstration at the Colosseum not too long ago. Spain is also trying to make changes.

Not all the attention has been favorable, though. A few fathers, like Mr. Hatch, the man disguised as Batman, have been accused in the press of being irresponsible parents by their former wives and girlfriends. Mr. Hatch was also accused of harassing his former wife after their divorce.

Mr. Hatch, 32, said that while he should have been more attentive to his young son and daughter, he had nevertheless been treated harshly. He said he had not had contact with his children in three years, despite court orders that grant him access every other week. He is still in court fighting the battle and says the group, and his role in it, has brought him comfort.

''I'm told by my solicitor that my son knows if he sees Batman on TV, that it's me,'' he said. ''That, to me, is my medicine.''

Photos: Matthew O'Connor, founder of Fathers 4 Justice, watched a video of his colleague Jason Hatch, also shown below, disguised as Batman at Buckingham Palace. Such stunts have publicized the group's cause: ensuring that divorced or separated fathers get a fair shake in court for custody of their children. (Photographs by Steve Forrest for The New York Times)